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Emerging Chemical Advisory & Litigation

E&W Law has highly skilled environmental practitioners and litigators who address contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), microbial contaminants, and microplastics, covering use, presence, regulation, and risk.

With centuries of collective experience in chemical regulation, health, and environmental matters, E&W’s Emerging Chemical Advisory & Litigation Team is among the most qualified in the nation to assist with CEC regulatory, permitting, and litigation matters. The team brings together the expertise of Susan Bodine, a former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) enforcement office and former head of EPA’s Superfund, RCRA, and emergency management office; Don Elliott, a former EPA General Counsel; Brent Fewell, a former EPA Office of Water Deputy Administrator; John Sheehan, a former top-tier U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) trial counsel; David Moore, a former EPA Associate Regional Counsel; and other experienced environmental attorneys.

This unique combination enables E&W to provide legal counsel that understands the complex regulatory environment and other challenges companies and communities must navigate while also delivering strong litigation services.

E&W’s Strengths

  • Experience with regulation; scientific and technical legal issues and analysis; chemical fate, transport, and exposure; human and environmental effects legal criteria and analysis (acute and chronic toxicity, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, flammability/explosivity, persistent, and bioaccumulative criteria).
  • Nationally recognized environmental experts with strong relationships with regulators and acknowledged for our work in environmental litigation. Our lawyers have experience with precedent-setting Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund) matters.
  • Fully engaged in the factual issues, working on cases involving PFAS chemicals subject to regulation and on the status of regulatory and scientific determinations on specific PFAS compounds.
  • Experts in potential fate and transport of studied PFAS compounds, the history of PFAS use, the media via which they enter the environment, and potential impacts on human health. We work closely with consultants with technical expertise to address these issues.
  • Tracking PFAS cases around the country and international developments and know which facts are presented in other cases and which legal strategies litigants are using. We know the intricacies of the governing law.
  • Advising companies on the management of regulated or environmentally sensitive PFAS compounds as well as the management of waste materials containing PFAS.
  • Extensive experience representing utilities, businesses, trade associations, and national and local groups of water and wastewater utilities.
  • Numerous attorneys with technical and scientific degrees, training, and decades of experience in chemistry, biology, chemical engineering, and toxic substances.
PFAS Advisory Litigation
PFAS Advisory Litigation2

Representative Experience

  • U.S. Chamber, et al v. EPA, 24-1193 (D.C. Cir.). Represented a petitioner challenging the CERCLA PFOA and PFOS listing.
  • AWWA v. EPA, 24-1188 (D.C. Cir.). Filed an amicus brief on behalf of petitioners in challenge to SDWA PFAS MCLs.
  • Victoria Carey, et al. v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours and The Chemours Company, et al., No. 7:17-CV-201-D (E.D.N.C.). Assisted in discovery of key documents and with chemical-specific issues.
  • Representation of a regional airport with a strategy to resolve liability regarding historical groundwater contamination issues resulting from a past lessee’s operation of the airport’s ancillary facilities (aerospace manufacturing). The client’s international airport also faced stormwater permit enforcement actions arising from de-icing and other chemical use, creating additional enforcement liability and uncertainty. E&W successfully negotiated with other responsible parties to achieve voluntary remediation of historical contamination and defend its client against threatened state enforcement.
  • Representation of the Airports Council International – North America, and large, medium, small, and non-hub airports across the country with investigations, regulatory challenges, and litigation related to use of AFFF.
  • Representation of the Airport MDL Coalition – a coalition of airports with interests in the AFFF Multi-District Litigation in South Carolina federal court.
  • Joint Coordinators of the PFAS Regulatory Coalition – a coalition of industry, trade associations, municipalities, and consultants that engage in important federal and state activities related to PFAS.
  • Secured dismissal with prejudice of Michigan’s PFAS contamination lawsuit against E&W client Gerald R. Ford International Airport. The court held that federal law preempted the state’s claims arising from the airport’s federally mandated use of firefighting foam and that the foam’s use constituted a permitted release under the airport’s state operating license.